


Because we can.

by SolicitedCity



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxious Catra (She-ra), Arguing, Comfort, Confessions, Conflict Resolution, Crushes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Glimmer (She-ra) mentioned - Freeform, Lesbian Character, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Plot, Roommates, Teen Romance, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolicitedCity/pseuds/SolicitedCity
Summary: Adora and Catra are roommates, the only problem is Catra developed a hopeless crush on Adora and doesn't know what to do with her feelings. This turns into Catra saying stuff she doesn't mean. Together they'll have to find out how they really feel about each other, and if living together is worth all this back and forth.-"God, Adora. I don't hate you." Catra began speaking before she thought ahead. Her voice was cracking and she could feel her emotions catching up to her."Everyone loves you. They think youre great. Of course I believe you, I know you suck at lying and who WOULDN'T be attracted to you the minute they see you." Catra was already backing away from the couch where Adora sat. All the tension made her want to curl into a ball where no one, especially Adora, could look at her.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 109





	Because we can.

"Again?!" Catra slammed the fridge door closed. The fur on the back of her neck prickled in annoyance.  
"What the fuck, Adora!" For the third time this week her roommate left an empty container in the fridge. This time it was the milk, leaving Catra with a bowl of dry ceral for breakfast. It was really getting on Catra's last nerve.

"Huh?" The blonde perked her head up from laying on the couch, sideways with her feet on the armrest like an asshole Catra thought. It looked like she had been half asleep but Catra wasn't in the mood to respect her sleep schedule. It wasn't like she needed any extra beauty sleep anyway.

"Look!" Catra shook the empty milk jug at her. She was tightly strung like a wire. Her movements were becoming forceful and jerky as they often did when she was sincerely pissed off. Which happened a lot more recently.

"Oh. I'll go to the store later." Adora broke eye contact and returned her attention to the tv. She had turned on some kind of reality show before she dozed off. Catra could be mildly impressed with her roommates taste in music, but her taste in television was downright terrible. Sappy romance movies, pointless sitcoms, and 'classic' films were all Adora seemed to enjoy watching.

"Like hell you will, you never do. And turn the tv off for once. It's all the time and you'e not even paying attention to it." Catra dived for the remote on the coffee table before Adora grabbed her wrist roughly. She had a strong grip, unsurprisingly. Maybe those muscle weren't just for looks after all. Catra should've said something, but she was too taken aback by the sudden contact to think of anything.

"Don't. I like the background noise, besides" Adora let go of Catra's wrist. "how is this any different from the white noise machine you keep going in your room every night? Took me weeks to get used to that thing." Adora mumbled the last bit with an air of arrogance, sinking back into the couch.

"Of course its different. White noise helps me sleep, it might help you too if you weren't so stubborn." Catra raised her voice but inside she was starting to feel a little on edge. Ever since she was little, she had vivid nightmares. A weird combination of melatonin, white noise, and avoiding caffeine was about the only shot she had at sleeping through the night sometimes. This wasn't the first time Adora asked about her sleeping habits, and every time it made her uncomfortable. It wasn't the type of thing Catra would be fond of opening up about. Especially to Adora, who slept like a rock anytime she wanted.

"Whatever." Adora waved Catra away with her hands. Catra didn't even need to look at her to notice the eye roll, the tone in her voice gave it away. Sass from Adora may have been appreciated if she said it while gentle running her hands through Catra's shortly cut brown hair, but now was nothing like the moments Catra often pictured in her head.

"It's not 'whatever'. You never listen and I'm getting tired of it!" Catra's voice was getting dangerously close to flat out yelling. She was so frustrated and Adora didn't look like she was even making an effort to pay attention. They seemed so disconnected from each other. 

"And all you do about it is get upset, I'm wondering if us living together is a good idea." Adora spoke with a calm voice but her posture shifted into a look of unease. Catra's heart sank. Maybe she had gone too far with addressing her roommate's lazy behavior.

"The only thing you do consistently is pay your half of the rent, lets not get ahead of ourselves here." Catra tried to soften her voice but it sounded just as accusatory as everything else she had said so far. How could she ever expect Adora to fall for her short tempered attitude, Catra wondered, or even stand to continue being her roommate.

"I just don't think we need to keep pretending." Adora sighed before continuing. "It's very obvious that you don't like me. I stress you out and ever since our encounter last week, you can barely stand to spend time in the same room as me." Adora crossed her fingers behind her head and stared up at the ceiling as if she was still thinking about saying something else.

Catra knew exactly what she was talking about. A week ago, she came home from work early. It was supposed to be a chance for her to relax, she even thought about asking Adora if she wanted to order takeout and watch a movie. But instead, she came home to find Adora in a very compromising position with another girl. After an awkward silence, the other girl quickly left followed by Catra ranting about how Adora shouldn't bring home dates to their shared living space. It's not like they were dating, Catra didn't really have a valid excuse for why this upset her so much. She made the excuse that is was just rude and weird of Adora to have someone over without notifying her first, even though she didn't exactly tell her about getting off work early. Communication is rarely easy for Catra, sometimes she swears her mouth is working faster than her brain. It was even harder with Adora around to distract nearly every logical thought process she had.

Deep down, Catra knew why it really upset her. She was finally starting to get comfortable around Adora and she'd be lying if she said nothing about the blonde attracted her when they first met. After the first few months of living together it was going well, Catra even thought they were at friendship level. But the vision in her head of that other girl straddling Adora's lap and being so close they could probably feel each other's breath sent a spike of jealousy through Catra's brain. It didn't make total sense to Catra but she knew it meant they weren't as good of friends as she thought, and any other feelings from Adora weren't what she thought they were. Adora would never feel that way about her. Catra felt a lot of confusing emotions around Adora, right now it was mostly pain and anger.

"Well what do you expect? You were probably about to have your way with that girl on our shared couch." Catra growled, putting emphasis on 'shared'.

"You never let me explain!" Adora's brows furrowed in frustration. "I barely knew her, a friend of a friend, I invited her here because she said she could help me with some college work. She started getting too handsy and I.." Adora looked dumbfounded for a second, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand. "I had no intention of it going like that. I just wanted to be polite. I haven't talked to her since if it makes any difference." Adora stared at Catra, apparently expecting an answer.  
Catra's mind flip flopped between trusting Adora or not. It didn't really make a difference, besides proving that Adora wasn't quite as insensitive as the situation made her seem. Adora hadn't given her a reaosn not to trust her, but Catra didn't want to admit to overreacting either.

"I'm not an idiot." Adora lay her hands flat in her lap. She often gestured wildly when she talked. Usually when she was passionate about something, Catra observed this on several occasions when she helped Adora go over her thesis paper. "If I did choose to do that here, it would be in my own room when you're far away. If that arrangement pleases you." She was starting to get a bit passive aggressive Catra wasn't the only one who could be quick to lose patience.

"Adora I'm-" Catra was cut off abruptly.

"No, listen. Why do you even care? My social life doesn't have anything to do with you. It's like you hate me now. I don't know where any of this is coming from." Adora's voice trailed off until she sounded more tired than angry.

"God, Adora. I don't hate you." Catra began speaking before she thought ahead. Her voice was cracking and she could feel her emotions catching up to her.  
"Everyone loves you. They think youre great. Of course I believe you, I know you suck at lying and who WOULDN'T be attracted to you the minute they see you." Catra was already backing away from the couch where Adora sat. All the tension made her want to curl into a ball where no one, especially Adora, could look at her.  
"But I don't like hearing about and seeing how much everyone else likes you because I..." Catra's hands were shaking. She met Adora's unreadable gaze and soon the rest of her shook too. "Don't look at me like that!" Catra wished she hadn't said anything. She thought about the empty jug of milk now sitting on the counter since she put it down to hear Adora out and silently blamed it for all her troubles.  
Adora's head was spinning. She was afraid to say anything in case this was the only time Catra would open up, and even more scared about interpreting the situation wrong. Theres no way Catra was insinuating something like that.

"I got jealous, okay?" Catra almost sounded pitiful, the exact opposite of how she wanted to be perceived right now. "I thought maybe we had something going on, like we could be real friends." Catra began overthinking that statement. Would it suffice to say friends? She didn't only want friendship. "And I get way too into my own head. I thought you were avoiding me and it hurt. I don't know how to communicate all that, I probably lashed out a lot." Catra finally felt like she was finished. But she also felt extremely trapped, which is why she started moving towards the apartment door. Her hand hesitated, barely touching the doorknob. With her back to Adora it was beginning to feel like she was preparing to flee a room on fire. That was until Adora did what she was best at, saying something to make Catra question all of her decisions and make her stomach queasy.  
"Wait!" Adora felt like she was coming on too strong again. "I don't want you to leave before we can hear each other out. I want you to stay." The irony began to dawn on Adora, being that she was the one threatening to move out earlier and now she was trying to talk Catra out of crossing their apartment's threshold.  
Catra didn't know what to do herself. She had become victim to so many things she didn't want to admit or be a part of. Her instincts were telling her to get the hell out and go anywhere else until she could calm down and make sense of things, but for once these instincts were questionable. She sighed, releasing her tensed up shoulders, and turned back to face the metaphorical apartment fire.  
Somehow, Adora had walked soundlessly up behind her because now she found her face an inch from her roommate's. She braced herself against the door, hands trembling and afraid to exhale.

"Shit. You look scared." Adora felt her face flush, approaching Catra was usually a delicate procedure but this was definitely not her finest moment. Everything she thought about doing felt clumsy and wrong. She just wanted Catra to be on her side again. As if sides really existed here.

"I'm not scared of you. Why would you think that?" Catra's eyebrows turned to match the scowl on her face. She tried so hard not to let Adora know anymore of what was going on in her head. It caused enough trouble the first time and now she half expected Adora to start making fun of her or something.

"Catra...you're shaking." Adora said, reaching out for one of Catra's quivering hands. Adora knew none of this was a good idea but she couldn't just let her roommate storm off, even if Catra didn't seem like she wanted anything more to do with her. She cursed herself for giving into the hope that Catra really did like her and somehow it could explain all of the cold behavior so far.

"Look,I'm not scared of you. You clearly didn't understand what I said earlier but that doesn't make it any less difficult for me. You're really damn close right now and I think-" Catra snatched her hand away. "I'm going to have a panic attack if I can't get some space or a moment to think soon." She tried reminding herself that admitting to overwhelming emotions and then feeling the sharpness of panic rise in her throat was perfectly normal. She hated the thought of breaking down in front of her roommate and coincidentally the girl she yearned for and just confessed to, which is why she needed to get her thoughts under control.

"Sorry." Adora began mentally beating herself up for not understanding Catra's body language once again. "Can we try sitting on the floor? Glimmer says it helps her when she has those." She awkwardly sat down, crossing her leg as Catra wordlessly followed suite. She fidgeted nervously without really knowing what to do next. She was somewhat glad to see mentioning one of their mutual friend's stress relieving techniques was working.

"Yeah, it does help." Catra closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. She didn't feel trapped anymore. But then again, she always felt safe around Adora no matter how much she did to deny it.

"I don't know if this is a good thing to hear right now, but I did understand what you meant earlier." Adora didn't think she could make things any more awkward. The least she could dow as let Catra know she wasn't being ignored.  
"No one can really control what they feel about other people. You can think I'm an asshole and against all odds still like me in, uh, that way." Adora was doing her best to speak without stuttering. Catra let an unexpected laugh, sending Adora into a state of confusion. She wasn't trying to be funny.

"You still think this has something to do with me hating you?" Catra had to laugh at the day's weird turn of events. "I don't. At all." In fact, I like you so much I couldn't stand being around you everyday and pretending like I didn't. You're a little hard to look past, huh?" Catra felt like all of her carefully placed walls were shoved down much to her dismay. At this point, she didn't have much to lose.  
"Then why did you never say anything?" Adora had to admit, curiosity was getting the best of her.  
"I just did." Catra's sarcasm never failed her, but annoying Adora wasn't a priority right now. "Ok ok, like I said you're kind of intimidating and incredible so how was I supposed to make any moves. I don't even know where we stand right now, for crying out loud." Her posture slumped. "I'm sorry about being so rude to you but I can't exactly make up for it now." Catra muttered an apology.  
"I'm just a person." Adora said, shrugging slowly. "I thought the same things about you. But it bothered me too, thats why I couldn't accept advances from anyone else. I secretly hoped you would..." She rubbed her temples in an attempt to break up the stress piling up inside her head. "Anyway I just want you to know I understand what you went through. It sounds like we were dealing with the same thing in different ways." She finished speaking, feeling like a weight lifted from her shoulders.

Catra couldn't believe what she was hearing. This didn't go how she ever practiced it going in her head, but Adora wasn't exactly rejecting her. If anything she was reciprocating these feelings. The reality of this began to dawn on them at the same time.  
"So you would've been ok with pursuing a relationship?" Catra asked, assuming it was now off the table because of the outburst she just had. Adora searched her mind for an answer and for the first time in a while she didn't have any doubts about it.

"Yes. And I still would, if you'll have me" Adora extended her hand to Catra again, this time slowly and with a hesitant smile. This was all so much of a risk but they both could feel their own independent need to be together. No matter how many obstacles and problems arose, they both internally admitted to needing each other's company and not being able to clear their thoughts of the other one.

"Ugh." Catra's expression became unreadable for a few seconds. "How could I say no to that face. Plus, I don't think either of us really need to move out because of some confusing crushes. At least not without trying first." Catra took Adora's hand in hers. It was warm and felt like home. The apartment they lived in was temporary, the look in Adora's eyes was something Adora needed to feel like she was really at home wherever she was.

Adora stood up, dragging Catra up with her. They were still standing in front of the door. The air between them was filled with uncertainty but they both knew their hearts were happier than they had been in a long time.

"So...what now?" Adora probably sounded like she was attempting small talk but she genuinely wanted to know if Catra had any idea, she sure didn't. Catra's eyes fell back on the fridge where she started her morning, not knowing then how things would pan out.

"We're still out of milk. One of us has got to go to the store." Catra's body language improved so much from earlier, her half smile was already melting away the rest of Adora's worries and responsibilities about the situation.  
"We can go together." Adora replied, giving into a simple compromise that honestly felt like the beginning of a whole new world. She returned Catra's smile, tired but true.


End file.
